Persons suffering from urinary incontinence or disabled individuals who may not be able to control urination, normally use catheters to void their bladder. Existing catheters are typically made from a single piece of a continuous catheter tube, and typically, the thickness of the catheter tube is constant throughout its length. The length of the catheter is chosen to allow the catheter to be inserted into the urethra until the urine starts to flow. In addition, a certain over-length of the catheter is available for the manipulation and removal of the catheter. The over-length, inter alia, supports the user to firmly hold the catheter, to guide the urine to a place of disposal and to withdraw the catheter safely, without risking that the catheter disappears into the urethra. The catheter is thus longer than the urinary canal and, especially for men, the total length of the known catheters prevents carrying and disposal of the catheter in a discrete manner.
It is important that the tubular member does not collapse or kink, since this may cause problems during insertion and withdrawal of the catheter from a urinary canal and further may cause blocking of the passage for the urine to drain through the catheter. Existing catheters are therefore typically made from, e.g., PVC or polyurethane to form a form stabile and relatively hard, but still bendable, tube. Since the hardness of the catheter tube is selected to be relatively high with the view to avoid kinking or collapse of the internal flow channel, the catheters may collapse if they are bent with a too small radius of curvature. Accordingly, existing catheters not only have considerable lengths but they are also typically packed in an elongate condition, and in order to maintain the functioning of the catheter, the user is prevented from bending such packages into smaller or less notable dimensions.
Therefore, the existing catheters may be troublesome to handle and to bring along, not least for the large group of catheter users, who make use of catheters on a daily basis.